The Burt Bacharach Discussion Forum

It's generally accepted, Sara, that Burt's score is the best thing about Casino Royale. Incidentally, the title 'Home James and Don't Spare the Horses' was originally used for a song in the 1930s and made famous by the English Music Hall singer, Elsie Carlisle. As we all know the tune by that name in the movie went on to be better known as 'Bond Street'. Up until the 90s this was a regular on Burt's concert set-list:

I am a keyboard player and have uploaded two covers of songs from "Lost Horizon" a few weeks ago: however, they have received very few views so far.

I am the only person ever to have done a vocal cover of "Share the joy" or so it seems, and only one other person, Ed Ames, has done a vocal cover of "Question me an answer" and his version is not available anywhere online.

The two videos are here:
and:

An "oddity" from 1971 sung by Irish singer Dana.
It was composed by the late Paul Ryan (brother of Barry) who was strongly touted at the time as a "British Burt Bacharach" he also wrote "I will Drink The Wine" for Frank Sinatra.
Sadly Paul died of cancer in 1992 at the young age of 44.


"blue"

"Promises, Promises"
(Burt Bacharach / Hal David)

Performed by Joanna Eden

'The Looking Glass War' was a classic British spy movie from the 60s and had a very atmospheric and haunting score by Wally Stott. The title theme had a few John Barry touches in the orchestration but featured a flugalhorn and had a harmonic sequence which I'm sure Bacharach would have been proud of:

Sara D, thank you for that truly wonderful track from the great John Barry !
Here's an instrumental from 1964 by Italian Maestro Piero Piccioni.


Burt's "influence" spread's far and wide !

"blue" (film music geek)

Sorry folks wrong video.....here it is.


"blue"

Thanks for the video, Blue. Piero Piccioni's lovely piece must be one of the earliest examples of Bacharach's influence being heard on a film soundtrack. Incidentally, the theme for 'The Looking Glass War' was composed by Wally Stott not John Barry, although Barry's influence is all over the orchestration. As I'm sure you know, Wally Stott was also responsible for the famous 'Hancock's Half Hour' theme. You might know as well that he later had 'the op' and became Angela Morley, the composer of the score to the film 'Watership Down'. Anyway, back in the days of Wally Stott came the delightful light orchestral gem entitled 'Canadian in Mayfair'. I think you'll agree that it sounds like it could have been composed for a hundred different British movies from the 50s and early 60s.

Sara, thank you for that superb piece of music performed by the brilliant John Wilson orchestra.
I watched their "Proms" film music concert on BBCiplayer last weekend...absolutely superb !
And thank you for educating me about Wally Stott who I know very little about...you learn something new every day.
Here's a personal favourite from the Great Henry Mancini.....


"blue"

Yes, Henry Mancini was an extraordinary composer/arranger/orchestrator. I love his arrangement of 'Trav'lin Light' from the 'Mancini Touch' album.

That was great Sara...thanks for sharing !

"blue"

I don't know if you've seen this video of Tom Jones talking about the What's New Pussycat story.

That`s great, Rio. I never knew anything about the circumstance of this recording since I was never much of a Tom Jones fan.
In retrospect, ` though, who would have done it better? Or the even more challenging "Promise Her Anything"?
I don`t think, however, TJ should have been the first choice for "Us". Burt was obviously still writing - maybe subconsciously - with Dionne`s voice in mind.

Yeah, Rio, that's great -- thanks. As far as I'm concerned, nobody but nobody sings "What's New, Pussycat?" better than Tom Jones. I've never heard it done. And I'm a big Tom Jones fan to begin with. I absolutely love his version of "Us," as well. But I have to say that it doesn't surprise me that, just based on Burt's version at the piano, Tom wouldn't see right away the greatness of the song. But I'm so very glad that he did end up recording the future big hit song for the movie.

By the way, are there big hit songs from movies any more?

One of the YouTube commenters wrote " It goes to prove Bacharach's determination was based on vision and a well-deserved strong belief in you."